There are many ways you can join Nevada Cop Block and help contribute to our mission to ensure accountability for police crimes and violence. Among many other things, you can submit your own personal story or video involving the police, share a link to a story or video you’ve come across somewhere else on the internet, or invite us to an event you or someone you know is hosting that is related to issues involving the police and/or the judicial system.

You can also become involved on a more direct level in several ways. If you are a writer and are interested in police issues, I’d be happy to talk to you about posting on the site. If you would like to be involved in going out and doing copwatching and filming the police, we’d be happy to discuss joining you and posting any news worthy video that results. Similarly, if you are doing some sort of event and you’d like to have someone from our group involved, we’d be happy to discuss that with you. We’re particularly interested in events that encourage people to film the police and that help familiarize people with their rights.

We’re located in Las Vegas and as a result we have better access to and awareness of stories in Southern Nevada. We don’t, however, limit ourselves to Las Vegas or even Nevada. Whether you live in Nevada or not, I’d be happy to have you contribute in any manner mentioned above and possibly in many other ways that you may want to suggest.

Once again, TSA inspectors have failed to find 95% of the mock weapons sent through checkpoints by Homeland Security agents working undercover.

Just over two years ago, in June of 2015, I posted about tests Homeland Security had run at airports across the country. In those tests, undercover agents were sent through pre-boarding checkpoints run by the Transportation Security Administration. (Video from that original post is embedded below.)

Those agents carried realistic looking weapons and explosive devices past TSA screeners in order to determine how often the “weapons” would be detected. This included replicas of pistols, knives, nunchucks, tasers, ammunition, and even defused hand grenades.

Out of 70 items that should have been stopped, TSA screeners found a grand total of three of them. As I noted, at the time that translates to a failure rate of 95%. Not exactly a number that will make you feel happy as you stand in the giant line at the security checkpoint next time you fly somewhere.

Surely they’ve addressed those issues in those 2+ years and improved dramatically, though. After all, you could seemingly stumble into a higher level of success just by randomly guessing which passengers have some sort of contraband in their luggage. Right?

Undercover federal agents successfully snuck drugs and explosives past security screeners at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport last week, according to the local Fox affiliate.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) conducted the test last Thursday by sending agents disguised as ordinary passengers into the airport in order to see if screeners were up to snuff, KMSP reported.

The TSA “red team” attempted to smuggle 18 different items past airport security that should easily be detected but prevailed almost every time, the Fox affiliate reported.

A viral Facebook Live video shows a man being violently arrested in Euclid, Ohio.

A live-streamed video that was making its way around Facebook on August 12th (2017) shows a man being violently arrested in Euclid, OH. (Note: many of the people sharing the video had for some reason misidentified the location as Edina, MN.) As of right now, there aren’t a lot of details outside of what can be seen on the video. (That video is embedded below.)

Later in the evening, the Euclid Police Department did release a statement in which they said that the cops pulled a man named Richard Hubbard III, who is from Cleveland, over for a traffic violation. They then decided to arrest him for some unspecified reason. Euclid is a suburb of Cleveland.

According to the EPD statement, Hubbard refused to turn around and face away from them when the police officers ordered him to. Initially, there are two cops involved in the beating. Eventually, at least three other cops arrive and begin helping handcuff Hubbard.

The cop, that can be seen hitting Hubbard numerous times, including in the back of his head, has not been identified yet. Currently, he is on paid vacation while his co-workers perform an “investigation.”

A woman who can be seen recording with her cell phone apparently was arrested also once the other cops arrived.

Below, is the statement from the Euclid police, via Fox8.com in Cleveland:

Euclid police released a statement about the incident, saying that just before 10:30 a.m., an officer pulled over Richard Hubbard, 25, of Cleveland, for a moving/traffic violation near 240 East 228th Street.

Hubbard was ordered out of the car told to face away from the police as he was taken into custody. Police say that Hubbard ignored that order and began to physically resist as the officer took him into custody.

The violent struggle, pictured below, lasted for over 3 minutes.

Update: Partial dash cam video (also embedded below) has been released, which is included as an update to the previously cited Fox8.com post. However, it’s still not very clear even on that video why the police saw Hubbard as a threat when they initially decided to arrest him.

According to the new statement from police, Hubbard was being arrested for not having a license. In addition, although it isn’t shown on either video, the statement says that Hubbard was tased. (The taser can be seen being thrown onto the street after it apparently wasn’t effective.)

They also state that they thought he was going to run, but he appears to be boxed in between the car, the open car door, and the officer who would later assault him. It doesn’t seem like he would have much of an opportunity to run, even if that was his intention.

When 80 year old Mary Antrim’s stolen car was used in a robbery, Colorado Springs police told her it was on hold as evidence, then tried to auction it off without notifying her.

Back in June, Mary Antrim’s car, a Ford Crown Victoria, was stolen in Pueblo, Colorado. A few days later, it was recovered about 45 miles away by police in Colorado Springs after the unnamed person(s) who stole it used it in an aggravated robbery.

However, instead of returning her car once they recovered it, Colorado Springs police informed Antrim that it was being held as evidence. Then Antrim says they stopped answering her calls. The next time she heard anything her car, it had been scheduled to be auctioned off.

“They (police) told me it was involved in a robbery and that it was being held for evidence and that’s all I was told,” Mary said.

That information was give to Mary on June 5—more than a month ago!

“I’ve called them (police) every week to find out where the car is at and what’s going on with the car,” Mary said. “No one has called me back.”

Fast fast forward to July 10—Mary logs onto her computer and discovers her car is set to be auctioned off in September.

“I was dumbfounded,” she said. “I thought how in the world can the car go from being on hold for evidence and now it’s on hand and being ready to go to auction. I couldn’t believe that…”

“I need my car for my doctors appointments that I have to go to,” Mary said. “That’s my transportation and I’m 80 years old and I’d like to have my car back so I can do what I have to do.”

At that point, Antrim contacted one of those consumer investigation teams for a local news station. When KOAA News 5, the local NBC affiliate, called on her behalf they were told that the car was up for auction because she owed $178 for impound fees.

The problem with that answer, though, is that the Colorado Springs Police Department policy states that crime victims whose cars are impounded are not supposed to be charged storage fees. Another issue is that neither Antrim, nor her husband Clyde, were ever informed that the car had been released from the hold that had been placed on it as evidence.

In fact, the CSPD was even caught a lie regarding the latter requirement. When question, the department initially claimed that they had sent a letter to the Antrims on July 7th stated that the car had been released and giving them until September 11th to claim it before it would be auctioned.

However, the letter that was sent out was postmarked July 11th. By some odd coincidence, that just happened to be the same day that the TV station first contacted the Colorado Springs police about Antrim’s car.

Fortunately for Antrim, in the end, once the media was involved the police waived all of the impound fees (that she should have never been charged in the first place). The next day, her car was released and she was able to go down and reclaim it with being extorted out of any money first.

San Diego Police Officer Colin Governski’s own body cam video exposed that he had committed perjury while testifying against a homeless man.

In August of 2015, Officer Colin Governski of the San Diego Police Department was in the process of harassing some homeless people who were camping near a beach. Shortly after, Governski saw another homeless man, Tony Diaz, come out of a nearby bathroom.

He then began accusing Diaz of living out of his truck and after initially indicating that he was warning him about doing so, he quickly decided instead to give him a citation. That citation was based on a San Diego law that prohibits people from living within a vehicle that is parked on public property.

Later, the lawyer representing Diaz filed an appeal of that conviction in order to challenge the constitutionality of the ordinance against living in a car. A similar law in Los Angeles had already been struck down as unconstitutional by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2014.

During the appeal process, it was discovered that Officer Governski had been wearing a body camera that day. (See video embedded below.) The unnecessary arrogance and mean spirited nature of the harassment shown on that video is appalling by itself. More importantly though, the body cam footage clearly showed Diaz was walking out of the bathroom and not sleeping in the back of his truck when Ofc. Governski first encountered him.

As a result of the contradiction between Governski’s testimony and what’s shown on the video, the conviction was reversed. However, Governski has yet to be charged with perjury. And it’s not because he doesn’t warrant such a charge. During the original trial, Governski had lied directly to the judge while under oath when he was specifically asked several times if Diaz was sleeping in the back of the truck when he found him. For anyone without one of those Magic Uniforms, that’s a felony.

Nobody should hold their breath waiting for Officer Governski (or any other cop) to be charged with or in any meaningful way punished for perjury, regardless of how obvious and outrageous the lies they tell are. In fact, the San Diego City Attorney’s Office indicated that they had not even reported Governski’s conduct to internal affairs or his supervisor when asked by his attorney.

Of course, as Tony Diaz’ attorney, Coleen Cusack, pointed out, if they will lie about such a minor citation what won’t they lie about? For the sake of yourself and anyone else you see being harassed or abused by the police, film the police.

After confirmation was received that Lt. Melton was in fact the focus of an investigation into exploitation of an elderly couple, his attorney denied that he was involved in the fraud. Instead, he maintains that he had only hired Parks to care for the couple, whom he describes as friends of Melton. No other details relating to the nature of the investigation into Lt. Melton’s involvement have been released by the LVMPD.

Of course, it very well could be that he had no involvement in the fraud Parks and her partners are accused of. However, the timing of the suspension could potentially indicate otherwise. The fact that the other people involved were indicted in March and Melton didn’t come under investigation until the end of July would seem to imply that there’s more to it. It’s also a bit contradictory that none of the family members of the hundreds of other victims Parks exploited appear to be under investigation.